


Be It a Second Later Or a Hundred Years.

by GlassAnkh



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Cursing - The Magical Kind, Cursing - The Non Magical Kind, Fae manipulation, Illness, NGB-Character, Other, Urban Magic Yogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassAnkh/pseuds/GlassAnkh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lying attempts to drown the city for reasons known only to themselves, Will suffers the consequences, and Kirin gets a lesson in sibling-hood from Lalna. Meanwhile, Nilesy knows more than most people think he knows, and also a lot less than he believes. One shot. Woefully unspecific. Warnings in the tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be It a Second Later Or a Hundred Years.

**Author's Note:**

> I started with a basic concept in the style of those ol' Prompts I used to mess around with along with friends. The challenge is to create a piece using only a word, a quote, and a physical image. In this case, ' _malaise_ ', " “ _Nothing's ever the same," she said. "Be it a second later or a hundred years. It's always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane_ , and _'unhealthy looking vines in too small clay pots'._
> 
> I apologise for my tendency to write fictions that are basically non-sequiturs. There's definitely inspiration here from a lot of the other UMY fics floating around (all of which are amazing), though I wouldn't consider anyone else's hypothesised events "canon" to this story-verse. That probably goes without saying because this is a sandbox, but I'm still building my interpretation of the UMY-verse and it's changing every five minutes. My current understanding of Xephos is 'anxious but means well and trying not to overstep his bounds', my understanding of Kirin is 'too close to human for other Fae's liking, but still not really someone anybody wants to screw with' and my understanding of Lalna is... Well, Lalna is Lalna. I just hope I did him justice.

 

'...Kirin?'

The room had been quiet for so long that Nilesy almost thought Lalna had fallen asleep, hunched over in the chair besides the bed. Easy mistake to make, Lalna was basically one big fidget.  Kirin didn't answer; he stood near the door, his eyes fixed on a musty tome full of hard written, scribbled lettering. 'Do you reckon... is Will gonna die?'  

It wasn't a ridiculous question. Not judging by the harsh, liquid rasping that came from Will's lungs. He looked as bad as he sounded, pale and burning hot, with the dark-ringed eyes of someone who had spent several nights in a row not sleeping. He hadn't woken since Nilesy dragged them out of the flooded basement, Kirin sealing the hatch with a wall of roots, more like chains than foliage. Will had been shuddering with cold even then, a malaise crawling through him the way water now crawled up through the city drains. But rather than fading after tea and warmth, it had morphed into something more, become thick and feverish.

Nilesy wouldn't say he was sleeping so much as completely out of it. 

Lalna's question gave Kirin pause. 'I won't allow that,' he said without looking. Nilesy had been observing him not-watching Lalna, and Lalna not-watching Kirin in return, for hours now and it was starting to grind on his nerves. 'They have no rule here, whatever Lying might believe.' 

Lying. Until that morning, Nilesy hadn't know the name. _The Witch of the Well_ was the one he remembered. Kids called them all sorts of things because they didn't know any better, and because kids were Off Limits to the local Fae. It was a pretty stupid name really. No Witch could call the underground waterways up through the pipes of a city. Nilesy knew a thing or two about the Water Affinity and he wouldn't touch the stuff flowing through the streets right now of you _paid_ him.

Lalna was fidgeting again. Nilesy supposed he'd heard the same stories -well, _lectures_ , really- from Xephos that Lomadia was always drilling into Nilesy's head like a stuck record: " _Don't trust the Faerie, never accept their gifts, there's no such thing as a free meal and Fae overcharge at the best of times. And on that note, Nilesy, don't eat the food, don't acknowledge you owe them anything even if you think you might, don't scratch your nose the wrong way_..." You'd think they were all five years old sometimes they way certain people went on.

Yeah, Lalna had heard the same lecture alright. Then again, so had Will and had _he_ listened? Had he hell. Nilesy could practically see the gears working in Lalna's head, but he bit his lip, wrung his hands together and kept talking. 'Right, only... I get this is weird but hospitals _are_ a thing.'

'Yes, Lalna, I am aware that they are, as you say, _a thing_ ,' the vague smile which accompanied his words never reached his eyes. If that sort of thing wasn't just Glamour, anyway. Nilesy had never known or cared. He saw enough of Kirin for reassurance and it seemed rude to ask for more. 'And how do you presume we're going to _reach_ one?'

'Uh... Don't suppose you've got a boat somewhere in that extra-dimensional greenhouse of yours?'

'Even if I had -and my considerable supplies don't exactly strength that far- I don't think moving him would be a wise idea, do you?'

Lalna glanced at the bed. Nilesy hadn't asked who's room this was. It didn't feel like the bedchamber of a Lord of the Seelie Court. But then again, it didn't feel much like a bedroom at all, the presence of an actual, oversized canopy bed notwithstanding. There were too many plants, succulents from floor to ceiling on one side, a window the size of a wall on the other. Nilesy was pretty sure there were no windows like that at the front of the shop, but this one clearly looked out onto Front Street which was slowly and inexorably filling with grey water. 

They had dragged in as many blankets as they could find; it didn't seem to make much difference. Will wasn't shivering so much as _quaking_ and it was making the light of Nilesy's phone flicker,  electricity stinging his fingers when he tried to text.  'Nah, not a good idea, mate.' Nilesy shook his head. He'd stuck his hand out the window earlier. The damp air was as close to ice as you could get without it becoming sleet and who knew what else was in it. 'S'too cold out there, and I bet Mister Wet Blanket would make us answer for it.'

'...Mister Wet Blanket,' Kirin repeated.

Nilesy shrugged. 'Seems as good a name for him as any.'

Fact of it was, Nilesy couldn't actually see Will being better off at a Hospital. This was _Kirin's_ place. Kirin had every magical and non-magical remedy Nilesy could think of, a lot more he couldn't, and a few which were probably illegal. Not that any of it had done a bit of good.

Kirin shook his head. 'There may be ways around this, we just have to be patient. Eventually they'll get bored or distracted, that's their way. Then we'll be able to do something more productive.' 

'I thought this was supposed to be your part of the city, or something?' Lalna snapped. 'Can't you just make them clear off?'

'The underground isn't mine, and besides which, Lying has closed the Gates.' There was a hint of anger, maybe even disbelief in his voice, which surprised Nilesy more than the water rushing into the basement out of nowhere. Because yeah, he _wasn't_ altogether sure what it was that Kirin was waiting for either. Out of nowhere, Nilesy remembered the shambles of last Solstice, all those lights and fire and the Hole in the Cemetery that didn't seem to have a bottom... Nilesy had no doubt that Kirin could handle one uppity Fae messing with his own boundaries, couldn't he?

But... the last time Kirin shed his Glamour around mortals had been at the height of summer. Seelie were summer creatures, not winter. Now it was late December and the air was heavy with un-shed ice.

Lying probably anticipated that, now that Nilesy thought about it.

Anyway, whatever  "Closed the Gates" meant, it apparently included shutting off access to emergency services. Kirin wasn't talking about the sort of walls you called up for a ritual. This was something to do with faerie law, perhaps. Contracts. Lomadia talked an awful lot about Contracts, emphasising the first C, and Nilesy knew about boundaries from his own work. He could make a pretty substantial barrier out of a few bones, labradorite chips and chalk,  so goodness only knew what that creepy, sewer-born Fae and his even creepier abominations were capable of (what kind of name was _Rudy_ for an Eldritch sewer beast, Nilesy would like to know? He would've named it Shoggoth or Cthulhu or something more... he didn't know, appropriate.) 

'Yeah okay, but aren't you meant to have rules about that sort of thing?' Lalna sighed. 'Who owns what, who can go where, what you can do and all that?'

'You speak a lot of rules for someone who doesn't seem to understand what any of them are, Lalna,' Kirin sounded tired. Nilesy winced.

'I _know_ the Rules! You lot just keeps _breaking_ them!'

'We do no such thing. Lying has not left the Sewer. They have technically broken no rules at all. That's the problem,' Kirin muttered. 'Their domain is wherever the Underwater lies, they're just... redirecting it. They have been around for a very long time. Our... affiliation is not something I wouldn't expect you to understand, my friend,' Kirin said, voice calm and even. 'You learned what little you know from Witches who live very much within their worlds, not mine, and don't always recognize the needs of others. Untrained Sorcerers losing their minds in their midst, for example...'

The jibe was deliberate and Nilesy had to winch. 'Ouch, Kirin, was there need?' he murmured.

'Don't talk about dad like he just wasn't paying attention,' Lalna snapped. 'He's a good witch. He just didn't know.'

Kirin raised an eyebrow. 'In fairness I suppose it _wasn't_ his responsibility. Will is no child. But he _is_ an adult who has been allowed to grow  for nineteen years without truly knowing what he is. Can you imagine the damage that caused?'

'How could we have _known_?' Lalna muttered. 'Sorcerers don't crop up a hundred times a generation.'  

'Neither do Homunculi, and yet you and your... _brothers_ were taken in. Taught.'

'He did the same for Will!' Lalna snapped, then flinched away. 'He _tried_. It's not the same.'

'No, I daresay it isn't,' Kirin seemed to concede that although judging from the scowl on Lalna's face, Nilesy might be misinterpreting.  'Perhaps if it _had_ been he might not be in this mess. Still I can't expect a man afraid of everything outside of his Threshold to know.' Nilesy wasn't sure how Kirin meant that, but Lalna, scowled, muttered something about books and left the room. Kirin sighed. It reminded Nilesy of the sigh Lomadia gave whenever her potions messed up for the fifteenth time in a row.

This was basically the established pattern. Lalna would stumble around his words for a while, wrapped up in worry or scouring books from Kirin's shelves that he barely touched with his fingertips, as if they might be infected with something. The other times he'd be either yelling at Kirin for some slight against the Mistral family honour or standing there looking like he was about to wet his underwear in the aftermath of said yelling. 

Nilesy couldn't blame him really. Kirin could be _scary_ when he was pissed, and he had more reason now than ever before, even taking into account the Hole-In-The-Cemetary incident. Xephos was a nice bloke, all gentle voice and firm handshake, but Nilesy thought he _might_ want to leave lessons on Fae-safety to Honeydew, seeing as Lalna couldn't seem to form a sentence right now without second guessing it. The lessons were supposed to help, not bloomin' paralyse you with indecision. Dealing with Fae was a lot less stressful when you  tried to chill out a little.

Lalna never seemed to learn his lesson though, and Kirin wasn't cruel enough to make him regret it. Not with Will as sick as he was. Kirin understood that. It was concern, Nilesy was sure. But even so, his occasional snaps of cool anger made Nilesy flinch and wonder whether the glimpses of eyes in the back of Kirin's hands were just a trick of the light.

'Honestly mate,' Nilesy murmured to Will, 'wouldn't wish this on anyone, but ya might be better off asleep for a bit. It's getting all not-cool and awkward out here.' 

If Will heard him, he gave no indication of it. Nilesy wasn't sure how anybody could look like that and still be breathing. The skin of his face practically flared beneath Nilesy's hand, and he could feel a humming pulse under his fingers, faster than it should be. Then Will flinched under his touch, eyelids flickering open. The gaze that met Nilesy's was confused and fever bright. Nilesy snapped his hand back.

'...Will?'

Will mouthed something, too quiet for Nilesy to hear, words rasping. Nilesy sensed the nearby pressure of Kirin at his back, one hand on his arm, the other reaching out to touch Will's face.  Whatever it was Will said, Kirin heard it. 'I know,' he said gently. 'It's all right.' Will seemed to frown before his eyes closed, that old, familiar expression he wore whenever he was frustrated with the world for not making the kind of sense it was supposed to.  When Nilesy looked up, Kirin had settled into the chair vacated by Lalna. 'The water's rising. I don't think anyone's leaving their Threshold tonight.'

'Yeah... He's not looking good, is he?' he met Kirin's gaze in the quiet and tried to hold it, even when he saw the brief flicker of movement, like spare eyelids closing where no eyelids could be. 'This isn't natural, right? This doesn't just _happen_ to people.'

'On the contrary,' Kirin answered. 'The City called, Will answered. Now he has no choice but to listen.'

Nilesy started to say he didn't understand but then realised that wasn't true. He _did_ understand. Kind of. The whole of Icaria was flooding with water, foam and sewage. Papers were disintegrating on doorsteps, gardens rotting. It was raining too, but not the drumming, cleansing rain of summer. More like a constant chilled mist where you could never decide if you needed an umbrella or not and ended up soaked to the skin either way. The water rose up to the lower floor's windows now. He could imagine the vines sickening where their roots rose to drag the water inwards, swallowing the taint before it could reach the shop. 

  _He's out there_ , Nilesy thought, understanding for the first time what that meant. _Will's  part of the city and the city is **drowning**_...

'Right. I get it. I totally get it. What I don't get is what does Lying _want_? I mean, how is flooding the streets helping them any?'

'Honestly, I think that's mostly for the fun of it,' Kirin shrugged. 'As for what they want... If anything it's no doubt what everyone seems to want these days. The Gift of the City, returned to it after so long.'

'Riiight, okay, but all this... it's not exactly the brightest method, is it? What's making him sick going to accomplish?'

'I'm not sure,' Kirin looked up, frowning. Maybe they want to force my hand, or perhaps they' think that if _they_ can't possess him, no-one should, but still... that would be unusual behaviour.'

'What, another Fae wanting control in Icaria is _unusual_?' Nilesy raised an eyebrow. 'Pretty sure that's par for the course around here, mate, no offence.'

'Not for _Lying_ ,' Kirin said. 'Have you ever seen them, Nilesy? As anything more than a hushed whisper in the playground? A warning in a nursery rhyme? A bad joke from someone in council maintenance whenever a water supply goes down?'

'I don't really get invested in local politicians, to be honest.'

'What I mean is, they have rarely expressed an interest in anything more than their Well. Their reasoning was always difficult to figure out even in the Old World. They were petty and indifferent by turns. To know for sure what they seek now, I need to find them and ask.'

'Find them _where_ , though?' Nilesy frowned.

'In the Well, of course,' Kirin answered. 'Did you think the childish nickname came from nowhere?'

'Oh. Wait, the Well's an actual thing? Like a real _Well_?'

Kirin nodded. 'It hasn't been on the surface to draw water from for a long time, but yes. It's still down there somewhere.'

'Right. _Great_ , because Fae aren't difficult enough when you know what they actually _want_ , 'Nilesy grumbled to himself.  'Once again, no offence, boss, but honestly, what's Lying even playing at? Don't they...' he paused.

'Yes?'

'I mean, there's debts and stuff to take into the equation here, right? That's how you work.' He shuffled.

'That is generally how we operate, yes, is there a point here?'

Nilesy winced. Damn it, Kirin was going to make him say it and saying it always felt... weird, like cursing at as funeral, to use a blunt analogy. He rolled his words around in his head, trying to find a way to put it which didn't sound so off-putting but eventually gave up when he realised there wasn't one. 'Well, Will's... you know. Indebted. I mean- that's what Xephos gets so worked up about and- look, I know how it _works_ , alright, Kirin? I'm not an idiot.'

'I would never have assumed so.'

'Right, so, um... anyway, Will works here, right? So if Lying hurts him... doesn't this count as a sort of contract cessation?'

'Between Lying and myself? As you've probably guessed by now it isn't that simple, Nilesy. The Contracts of which you talk are far more ancient than I think you realise. The Well was on the surface when we met and the water within it was cool and clear.'

Nilesy was trying to remember what he'd earned from the standard High School _Association with Non-Humans Induction Course_ when he was sixteen. Either that or something from his class on Politics or one of Lomadia's books. He had never shared much of Lomadia's taste in literature which mostly consisted of non-fiction and Witchy detective tales. But Nilesy had gotten her a book on Greek Myth their first year in the house, and it had turned out to be both point of union, and the bane of Nilesy's life. Because of _course_ she'd manage to find a morality tale about Not Trusting Fae in a book on _Greek Mythology._ Still, they both liked the stories, even though Nilesy thought she missed out on a lot. You were supposed to be gunning for Herc, not over analysing the blood distribution to the heads of a Hydra or whether or not Poisoned Shirts were things that could work.

Nilesy pulled his brain back to the present, still thinking of poisoned shirts and hydras. All he knew for sure was that harming another Fae's court was tantamount to heresy, and he was pretty sure that Will being poisoned from the inside out  via his conduit with the city counted.  'So you can't just call down the sun on him or something like that?'

'...Call down the sun.'

'Well I don't know! Use your Lord Sidhe connections or something, call him out to the Central Circle, _anything_!'  

Kirin's laugh was quiet and did not reach his eyes. The thing was, after all these months, Nilesy was starting to figure this out. Hell, he could look at Kirin and actually discern what he was feeling on occasion.

'I'm afraid you don't _quite_ understand, my friend,' he said. 'Lying and I... we're very old. I guess you could say we go back a long way. My anger would be justified, but they take no liberties here. Not ones I could use against them.'

Nilesy wouldn't have thought Kirin capable of fear until right now. Trying to bypass the Witch's defences would take time, and it could be time Will didn't have. Besides, who knew who else could be drowning out there? Hell, Nilesy hoped Lomadia was okay. She would have stuck with Mister Cat probably; climbed up into the attic when he meowed at her to follow as he would. Mr Cat was clever like that; he knew where to go and Lomadia was smart enough to listen to a feline when it came to issues involving water and emergencies. He'd look after her. Yeah. No need to worry about Lomadia when she had Mister Cat around. One Mister Cat was worth a dozen Charms of Fortune.

'So, you reckon you can get down there, then?' Nilesy asked quietly. 'Into the belly of the beast and all that.'

'There would be no way in for a _mortal_ ,' Kirin said. 'Well...'

'Well?'

_'Well_ ,' Kirin missed the joke. 'There are pathways _I_ could take, ways you can't go... Ah but your dear Lomadia would not wish me to talk to you about those things, I wouldn't want to upset her.'

His eyes twinkled slightly and Nilesy snorted. 'Oh get out of it. So you could use one of these... Gateway thingamajigs, then? Get to where Lying is?'

Kirin nodded slightly. 'Possibly. But they would know the moment I touched their water. They couldn't hold me back forever, not if I have right of way, but it would... delay me,' He looked at Will, concern and -yeah, that was definitely fear in his gaze. 'The best course of action would be to approach from a direction they can't sense me.'

'Right... wait no, they're in _water_ ,' Nilesy glanced at the window, imagined the flood rising higher and higher, fetid liquid and rubbish rising with it. 'Does a _direction they can't sense you_ actually _exist_ right now?'  

'It seems unlikely, doesn't it? You can't get into a flooded sewer without touching _water_. But it could be done. I can find a way.' There was a certainty in his tone that reassured Nilesy more than it probably should have. After all, if Kirin wasn't panicking, what reason had he to? Kirin could fix this.

Lalna had come back into the room somewhere in the middle of this conversation. 'And then what?' he asked. 'Ask him nicely if he wouldn't mind stopping with the whole _flood the city for shits and giggles_ thing? If he'd stop poisoning your...' Lalna didn't so much trail off as snap his jaw closed. 'And _then_ what, Kirin?'

'I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it I guess,' Kirin admitted. 'I'm sure they and I could come to an arrangement.'

"An arrangement" was not what Nilesy was hoping for. Lying had flooded his workplace, hurt his friend, wrecked the crop of lemongrass he and Will and been doting on for weeks, and was probably terrifying Nilesy's poor cat even as Nilesy sat here worrying about it. He didn't _want_ Kirin making arrangements with that person.

'Great, nice to see you've got us covered,' Lalna muttered. 'I know about your _arrangements_ , Kirin, they never work out in our favour.' 

'I see your adopted father really _has_ taught you everything he knows,' Kirin was smiling now, oddly gentle, in contrast to the light in his eyes. 'You sound just like him.'

'Yeah?' Nilesy could _see_ Lalna _swallow._ 'Well... well good. I'll take that as a compliment, then.'

'Perhaps you should attempt to sound more like yourself?' Kirin suggested. That was what it sounded like to Nilesy: a suggestion. But Lalna's frown deepened.

'What do you mean?'

 'You're still young. Younger than most would assume. But it's natural, I suppose, for children to parrot their elders. We all did that at one point or another, didn't we?'

Lalna opened his mouth to argue but Kirin had gone back to Will. Nilesy, who had watched this whole exchange curiously, gave Lalna what he hoped was a sympathetic shrug, and felt a little hurt when Lalna glared at him as if he too was making a hobby out of offending his family honour. 

Honestly, Lalna's origin was a mystery to most, and the reality was too weird for television. Lomadia had been quick to laugh off Nilesy's original assumption (he had no idea why, _he_ had thought Xephos or Dew turning out to have a long lost lovechild from a former companion in a far off land was _perfectly_ reasonable. Especially if even half of the rumours about them saving the world once were true. It happened to the heroes and heroines in stories all the time.) He only knew bits of the Reality and it was just as mad; something to do with a case Xephos worked on for the Police, cultists, rituals and exceptionally supernatural good luck on the part of the Lalnae. The original human had not been so fortunate. Nilesy always suspected that perhaps Xephos viewed them as his penance. He had raised them to make up for not saving the human life that had spawned them.

He would never say this to Xephos' face, though. That would be awful.  

Honestly though, Lalna was making too much of this. Nilesy had a pretty good understanding of what the Fae were _like_ , he felt. They played word games because they couldn't lie, and just used the truth when they couldn't use word games. and either way, they usually got what they wanted because they were _clever_ like that. Lomadia thought he didn't know what it meant - to have your life owed to a Fae. But he _did_. He just...

He wasn't all that sure how much he _cared_. That was the thing. The world was full of people out to get what they want from others, at least Fae couldn't lie to you about it.

Besides, times like this, with Kirin quiet, concerned and close enough to human that it almost didn't matter, it was difficult to worry about. Lalna went back to focussing on Will then, drawing the cloth from the bowl of cold water. Will was weak and pale, not even aware of the cloth being brushed against his forehead, and Lalna was probably wondering how they were going to explain all this to Xephos. Nilesy didn't envy the poor guy. Better dealing a sewer Fae than an angry Mistral.

Nilesy often wondered what it was like to have a brother or sister. It had been just he and his mother growing up; an eccentric woman with an eternally stained apron and a warbling voice. Sometimes he'd wished for a sibling or two. A cousin would've been alright. It would've been nice to have someone who _got it_ , on the days he was teased for his oversized hand-knitted sweaters in ugly colours and tattered trainers. Somebody he could defend against bullies and who could defend him in turn. Lomadia had been great, though. A bit annoying at times, but great. Even when they were kids, she could take down kids twice her size with her tiny, sharp fists and stabbing tongue and the threat of an amateur hex or two, not that she ever actually _did_ that. She was the one who dragged Nilesy away from the other boys while they threw coins and sweets into the drains, as tribute to the Witch of the Well...

Will coughed, and something in Nilesy's mind _clicked_.

'So... does Lying own the street now?' The other two looked at him. 'Is that how this works? They own the sewers, they brought the sewers up here, so they own the street as well because the sewers are in it right now?  Is that how the boundary functions?'

'Not precisely,' Kirin said, though he sounded curious. 'He only owns what lies beneath.' 

'What about Will, then?' Nilesy asked. 'Isn't... the city's _his_ or something, right?

'Will is the city. He does not own it any more than it owns _him_. It just wants him around, and who can blame it, he's a prize to be envied. Perhaps for that reason alone Lying would see him destroyed.' ( _Reason. More like Excuse_ , more like, Nilesy thought. Fae weren't all that different to humans when you got down to it.) 'Still _that_ wouldn't be like them either. Maybe...' he sighed. 'It's been a long time. And this is a prize like no almost other before it.'

'Stop it,' Lalna frowned. 'He's not a prize, don't... you keep talking about him as if he's _valuable_. '

'You don't think that the case?'

'Not like THAT! Not the way you make it sound. A person's worth is their own. Not yours, Sidhe Lord.' 

Kirin's eyes flashed momentarily, summer light bright and beautiful in their depths. Nilesy flinched, and Lalna took a large step backwards.

'Look, if you two would just hush up for a minute,' Nilesy snapped. It had the desired effect. Now they were both staring at him instead of each other, Lalna in confusion, Kirin in surprise. Nilesy took a deep breath. 'Alright, look. Lying only owns what lies under the street, right? So that's the water of the sewer systems, the pipes and fountains and underground rivers and such. Waterways.'

'Correct.' 

'So does he own the _Karpath_?' 

Kirin blinked at him. 'The River?'

Yeah. Because the Karpath connects to the sewers, right? But it didn't _start_ there, it comes from outside the city.' He'd researched this, back when he and Lomadia were house hunting. when you specialised in water that was just the sort of thing you did. She had wanted height, he had wanted the river: the waterways running down from the nearby hills outside the city. 'But the river connects to the sea... it just flows through the city. It's not part of the sewer network, not any more. We just... borrowed it. And that river's a bloody angry thing sometimes,' he smiled faintly. 'Trust me there. I've heard it. It knows it's own mind and it's no old Sewer Fae's plaything.'

There was another long moment of quiet broken only by Will's harsh breathing -worse than before. It sounded desperate and not enough.

'So we could get into the sewers via the Karpath?' Lalna repeated.

'Accessing the sewer system where it connects to the water of the River,' Kirin said. 'You are clever indeed, my friend,' and the smile Kirin gave him made pride swell in Nilesy's chest.

'The river's a couple blocks away, though,' Lalna said. 'We'd still have to touch that... water to get to it, and it doesn't look healthy.'

'Not if I use the rooftops,' Kirin said lightly, as if this were something he did every day. 'They should get me that far at least.'

'Oh-kaaaay. And even if you do, what are you even gonna do when you get to the Well?' Lalna said.

'Negotiate,' Kirin said, simply, getting to his feet.

Never had the word 'negotiate' been laden with so much heavy threat.

'Right... give me a second then,' Lalna said, stepping back ,turning to search for the bag he had brought to the store.

Nilesy and Kirin both watched him for a couple of seconds as Lalna pulled out books and vials and the kind of standard Emergency Spell Kit that most Witchy people never left home without.

'Lalna what are you doing?' Nilesy asked.

'I'm going with. What's it look like?'

'That isn't wise,' Kirin paused to look at him, an intense frown on his face. 'You are not yet an adult, and the sewers are no place for a mortal who does not owe me his allegiance regardless.' 

'Okay first: are you going by physical age there, or literal? Because I was never gonna pass that benchmark anyway. Second: I'm not doing it for _you_.' Lalna snapped. 'Try and stop me if you want, but I'm coming with you. I know how to cast barriers and... and you might need them.' 

The odds of a Homunculus being able to come up with anything a Sidhe Lord couldn't was kind of ludicrous to be honest, but Nilesy didn't have the heart to tell Lalna that. He looked so bloody _resolute_ , staring up at Kirin with his arms folded, only as light shaking of his knees to give his nerves away. In the end, Kirin lost the staring contest, probably on purpose, and sighed as if he were offering Lalna an extreme lenience. In a way, he probably was. 'Right, well better take some of the emergency runes, then. Xephos will not be happy if I return you with missing limbs and I'd rather not have him yelling on my doorstep. Again.'

It took Lalna a second to figure out this was an _agreement_. By that point Kirin was already opening a closest. He withdrew a dark leather package, unwrapping it to reveal a Staff. Nilesy couldn't help but stare at it. The ones you saw on television and in illustrations were always glam and showy and usually taller than their wielders. This one couldn't have been longer than two feet. It had an elegant beauty to it: a pure, white wood -or at least it looked like wood, arched like branches over a smooth , curved stone. The stone was forest and sea green, darker veins of blue threaded through it - malachite or serpentine; filigree trails of grey runes crossed the rod's surface.

But how it looked was nothing compared to how it _felt_. The room had changed when the leather covering fell away.  The air smelled suddenly of lemon and cool wind.

'Wait, you're going _now_?' Nilesy asked, glancing at the window-wall, to where the sun was sinking low in the sky.

'It wouldn't behove us to wait any longer,' Kirin muttered, examining the staff carefully before slipping it into his belt. 'The River is a pretty simple path. Once we're inside it will be too late for them to lock us out.'

'Right,' Lalna sounded nervous. 'And what do we do if they like, shut the gates behind us?'

'Then I'll have to _arrange_ our way out of that too, won't I?' he gave Nilesy a rueful smile that for perhaps the first time, failed to make Nilesy feel any better.

He knelt down, hand on Will's cheek, and whispered close to his ear -something Nilesy was sure he wasn't meant to hear, judging by the fact he was only inches away and _should_ have been able to. But there was warning in it, and reassurance and Will seemed to relax, breathing easier if only for a moment. From here Nilesy got a look at the Staff. Now that it was closer it didn't look very much like wood at all, but more like bone. The stone was almost certainly malachite though, laced with serpentine or jasper, simple and beautiful. Kirin looked at Nilesy and nodded. It was pretty obvious what was expected. 'Yep, say no word, boss, I'll be right here,' Nilesy said brightly. 'Holding down the fort. Or holding _up_ the fort, if that water keeps on rising, either way no need to worry. We'll be fine.' Nilesy smiled.

Kirin stepped away. Lalna seemed to fumble for a moment, unsure, and Nilesy didn't realise why  he was hovering until he stepped forward too quickly, leaning over to place a kiss on Will's forehead.

Nilesy remembered what that was about after a couple of seconds. He had seen Xephos do the same thing at gatherings and disorganised dinners. He'd offered it to Nilesy once or twice - a kiss to each cheek as a welcome, or a single kiss to the forehead as goodbye. It was an odd gesture, but Nilesy had taken it in his stride, just as he had the household's obsessive distribution of candles and the ceremonial-setting-fire-to-the-pork-chops (alright that one was probably just Honeydew covering his back after burning dinner but you never knew).

He wasn't sure what it meant exactly.  A promise, maybe. Of his safety beneath the Mistral Threshold. It made a lump catch in Nilesy's throat.

'Look after him?' Lalna asked, simply. 

'I will.' 

That was a promise too. 


End file.
